Halloween Surprises
by Leuny
Summary: Halloween is close, and with it come some suprises that Kaito is less than prepared for... between Hakuba, Aoko and his own heist demanding his attention, what is left but to go with the flow? Warning: the first chapter is riddled with introspection!
1. (To Go) Out On A Limb

**Halloween Surprises**

**(To Go) Out On A Limb**

**Disclaimer**: Nothing belonging to me excepting the plot bunny.

**AN:** This is an idea that just came to me in week two of this year's October; some of it might seem out of place, there will be many, many mistakes in this – I'm going to publish it regardless of it having yet to be read by a beta or not (anyone offering to be my beta for this?) 'cause my own personal beta has flown out to overseas (literally) and is veeeery busy and I'm just a tad impatient for this particular story to get "out there", so to speak. I WILL however try to correct/edit it as soon as I can get someone to proofread it for me!

Also: the events in this first installment take place on the afternoon/evening of the 28.10. (and the wee morning hours of the 29.10.)!

Seeing as I put _**Halloween Surprises**_ online under the label "Crossover" Fanfictions, I can assure you that Detective Conan _will_ appear here sometime… just a little bit later and with a far more minor role than what you are probably expecting that series' part in this fanfiction to be. *mischievous grin*

**Warning**: a lot of introspection and _thinking_. Anybody who doesn't feel comfortable reading that all the time, consider yourself warned! ;_D Also: beware of slight _Spoilers_ for my other fanfictions _**Tea, Anyone?**_ and _**The Tales Of Trump Kingdom**_ in this first chapter! This whole fanfiction has been filled heavily with references to my other fanfictions (yes, even _**It's Colder, Regardless**_ has an own part in a corner of one of the paragraphs somewhere), although it can be read without you having any prior knowledge of those. Consider the references "trailers" for said fanfictions, in that case. They will be pretty obvious to you, dear readers, throughout.

Hope you enjoy it irregardless: now, please get yourself some nicely steaming hot chocolate, chocolate chip cookies and a fluffy pillow, get comfortable, sit back in your chair and _**have fun reading!**_

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"_Change is coming; fate will work its magic on you in unexpected ways. You will be presented with interesting opportunities in the near future. Luck is with you."_

Amused, he chanced another stare at the horoscope he'd gotten at school that day. Well, he hadn't gotten it directly from any teacher or anything. Reading the newspaper as per usual, he'd gotten curious when Aoko had read hers out loud – after stealing said newspaper from him, of course – and when he'd read his own fortune, it had somehow gotten stuck in his head. Change was coming~… Really, the horoscope's text was somewhat absurd, he thought.

Putting it back into his school satchel lying right beside him, he closed his eyes in thoughtfulness. Of course change was coming – it always was, nowadays. His whole life was changing while he looked at it; what else would a horoscope say? What else would horoscope writers make their creations say than that change would be coming? It was a fairly uncreative way of putting what life was making him go through these days. Funnily enough, it was the magic part that wouldn't let go of him. And didn't this prediction describe him – his night job as well as his civilian persona – to a T? It amused him to no end, the little ways in which his life worked.

Wasn't it ironic that he was the one receiving this particular fortune? He had seen too much already (_especially Koizumi had helped greatly in disillusioning him when it came to the more obscure branches that the world was still hiding from him_) to do it away as a simple "funny coincidence". Concerning him, almost nothing was truly a coincidence. "Accidents" as such didn't happen, not to him. Neither did coincidences.

But over thinking this – and maybe attributing a completely wrong meaning to it in the process – wouldn't be the right way of going at it. He'd just have to wait and see in order to find out what was meant in the prediction. The amateur magician was wondering whether the change mentioned in there was a good or a bad kind of change. Sighing, he went back to watching the clouds pass by overhead. Kaito would cross that bridge when it came, he thought to himself rather more forlornly than he probably was entitled to. The thing was, there had been way too many things happening to him until then that he could truly enjoy being an optimistic person sometimes. Those times, he was rather happy with thinking of the worst that could come at him. He reckoned that this was way better than suddenly being caught off-guard and being forced to improvise while staring down at a sniper rifle or any other type of gun from close up.

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There was a light breeze playing with his hair. It wasn't uncomfortable, at all. The black of his school uniform contrasted strongly with the aquarelle colors of the vibrant green grass and the light brown earth surrounding him, ensconcing him in its warm arms as he rested on the floor. The dark brownish hue closely matched his hair, instead, making him stand out from farther away – he was very aware of the fact that anybody would be able to spot him easily from the other side of the river. Today, though, this didn't matter. The teenage-thief wasn't in his "working clothes", so to speak, so he could allow himself to relax a little at that instant, at least. Neither was he in any of his usual spots – he wasn't at home, nor at school either. Nobody would be able to successfully find out his current location if they weren't walking along his usual way to school by chance.

Eyes closed, all the brunette did was adjust his position a little, put his hands behind his head and yawn. The colors of the sun played joyously with the clouds in the sky. There, a pale grey, then on the other side of the sky there was a bright yellow. It was a lazy afternoon during the week just after school. Aoko had gone shopping – without him, seeing as he didn't have any inclination towards ending up as a pack mule any time soon.

Honestly, she was worse than his mother in some aspects. He regaled the sky with a fond look at that. She must know – _something_. At least. Kaito knew that, maybe unconsciously, Aoko _knew_ that he was Kaitô Kid. Otherwise she'd never have become as considerate as to leave him to his own devices every now and then; those times had only increased in the last year. Somehow, the long-haired girl knew not to pry. The girl knew when to say what, too. He counted himself extremely lucky in that the girl of his dreams accepted the changes in his personality that he'd had to go through in order to become Kid.

He'd had to let his excellence at school take the backseat and become the class clown instead. It wouldn't do to be remarked upon because of his grades – because then the probability that people would _look_ and figure out "Ah, he's an amateur magician, too? And his father died eight years ago, you say? And he's never home whenever Kaitô Kid appears?" would be higher than if he was the class prankster instead. They'd come uncomfortably close to the truth and his secrets just because of this. Aoko never had said a word about his steadily dropping grades. She'd only ever told him to study and hounded him to attend school regularly.

He'd kept them just above average, though, just because he didn't want her and his mother on his case, as well. Kaito was just glad that Hakuba hadn't been there for the beginning of his career as moonlighting magician. He knew that the blond would have been on his scent a lot sooner if he'd known that his scholarly accomplishments have started dropping in quality (and quantity) at the same time that Kaitô Kid had reappeared. It had been a slow, steady process – so that nobody would be overly suspicious.

Hakuba had gone home, as well, he pondered. Absentmindedly he wondered where the blond lived. A shame, really, that he – obviously – didn't live in Ekoda. Or was it a blessing in disguise, rather? Since they had come to this maybe-kind-of understanding-of-sorts, he wasn't so sure about what to label this, any more. What was the blond in relation to the Kaitô Kid nowadays, anyways? An ally? A partner? A friend, even?

Opening his eyes, he silently contemplated the detective's status. Did he feel comfortable, in the sleuth's presence? Or was it rather a kind of awkward tension that surrounded both whenever they were together? Weird. To his eyes, neither seemed a close fit to describe what was going on. This was decidedly strange. He knew he didn't exactly feel at ease in the other's company. There was still too much unsaid between them to make them friends. And yet…

Shoulders sagging slightly, Kaito counted himself lucky to even have found such a person. They were standing on shaky ground, but he was confident that – with time – the gap between both their knowledge would be closed and they could truly become – friends. Smiling a trembling smile, he admitted – to himself and in the confines of his mind only – that he really longed for another friend. One that he could tell things. Someone that would watch his back. A helper, in a way, an assistant who'd aid him to finally achieve what he'd set out to do. It would be nice, he mused, to have someone simply _there_. How long until he'd rely on the blond's aid and presence?

Funny. Kaito knew that – on some unconscious level – he already trusted the Hakuba heir with his life, even. He had no idea how that had worked, yet there they were. The magician-to-be couldn't shake the feeling any more than he could suddenly un-trust his … ally?

Slanting his eyes a little, he looked up into the sky in wonder. Sometimes, life had a very ironic way of putting things. Although Lady Luck would always work out in his favor, he didn't like the idea of relying on the noble Lady all too much. That was also why he'd always have so many beta-plans and schemes in his head at the same time and why he was planning ahead this far every time that he went out clad in white. A small puff of air – a not-quite sigh – escaped his lips. He supposed that he never went anywhere without plans – not even to school. Every single step of his was planned, fit in with his intentions as snugly as though it were a puzzle piece that fit into the grand picture of his life.

Of course he knew that you couldn't plan everything. Some things were bound to come out of left field or go wrong completely. But it was good to at least have a generic reaction ready for this, too. Otherwise he'd never have been able to hang on to that confidence that Kid exuded at every step of the game. Short plans, along with long term ones rested in his head side-by-side, retrievable for whenever they're needed at any given point in time.

This was why, at that moment, he'd decided to lie on the green grass of the left side riverbank of the river that flowed right beside the way that he took to go to school every day. He'd needed a break. Some time to himself where he could – privately and alone – think about the latest turns that his life had taken. He'd have preferred a rooftop, but the school was abuzz with activity; some sort of conference or something the like that was set to take place there that and the following day – which was also the reason for why all the pupils had been sent home a little earlier than usual and why he wasn't currently staring at the evening sky, but rather the afternoon version of the celestial landscape. Other than their school building there really weren't any skyscrapers of passable height in the near vicinity and he felt a little too lazy to go out of his way and look for one.

The riverbank would have to do for the moment.

It was peaceful and nobody would look for him there – least of all his mother who didn't even know about the conference at the school and who wouldn't be home that day, anyways. She had left for Hokkaido the Friday before and wouldn't come back until the next day. Yawning again, her son was wondering what she was doing there, of all places possible. Really, sometimes she was worse than him; he, at least, had the excuse of being a "teenager who didn't know any better yet" to fall back on; what was _her_ excuse? It was just as well, he reflected.

The light breeze had stopped by then, leaving his hair in disarray as per his usual standard. The birds that he could hear chirping in the distance and the low, bass sound of the river water flowing by at a steady speed only added to that pleasant atmosphere that encompassed the area. The far-off sounds of cars passing by melded with the river's and the sun rays that were shining on him weren't too hot, either, seeing as from time to time the sun would be hidden behind a cloud. Kaito could feel the surface of the earth that he was lying on and the colors of the sun rays played behind his closed lids, seemingly just out of reach. He knew better. Even Ikarus couldn't touch the sun, who was he to try?

It was nice, to just lie there, for once, and let the world revolve around him as it wanted to. To, for once, have any and all pressure fall away from him and enjoy the fact that he was _now_, _here_ and so very much _**alive**_. The teenage-thief couldn't remember a time where he'd felt more like himself than right then, right there.

Eyes closed, he didn't even notice as he slowly drifted off.

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_The first thing he knew was that this was just too absurd to be true. He was in a throne room, standing right before the throne in fact. When he let his gaze swivel around he saw that there was even a crown there – hidden behind a square glass case just off to the left side. Right in front of him, behind the throne, there was a small space and two doors that went off on the left and on the right hand side of the huge tableau that hung against the wall. That tableau he found to his immense surprise showed three people, all wearing different crowns. The thing that shocked him most, however, was the fact that the third person, standing right beside the woman in the painting – his mother, he noted distractedly – was himself._

_Eyes wide as saucers – Poker Face was nice and all, but some situations, such as this one, where he was alone and/or in unfamiliar surroundings, called for a different kind of mask entirely – he turned in place and regarded the rest of this … throne room, for lack of a better word._

_His first assumption had been correct – in that he was indeed standing right in the middle of the aisle leading up to the throne; actually, he was standing in the middle of the third step leading up to the throne. A red carpet – clichéd, as it was – led from the massive entry doors all the way up to the throne. Everywhere, picturesque little ornaments, containing roses among other kinds of flowers, were scattered around the place. There were rows of seats to both sides of the aisle, just like he'd seen in those Christian churches when he'd visited one in Tokyo together with his mother and father long ago. Real flowers were arranged at every end of the rows facing the aisle and on every wall._

_Staring down at himself, he found that he was wearing a truly magnificent midnight blue dress shirt that he couldn't remember ever owning and clean, white trousers. His feet were cloaked in sparkling white dress shoes. The familiarity with these colors on these pieces of clothing, at least, gave him a little bit of comfort. He found solace in the fact that even in his dreams he was wearing white. A light weight was resting on top of his head, too. When he brought a hand up to touch it, ornately formed metal met his fingers that was slightly cool to the touch. A crown? Somehow he didn't dare lifting it off his head to examine it._

_The pleasant silence was broken as his ears picked up on the muted noise that was coming in from outside. He wondered what was going on. Slowly, Kaito ambled to the entrance doors. Stopping right in front of them, the junior thief mulled over how he could get them to open to see what was happening outside. Raw strength was out of the equation, seeing as the doors were more than thrice as big as he was. Pensively, he brought his right hand up to his chin to properly think about his next course of action. Thus, he didn't immediately notice a smaller door that was situated beside the bigger ones opening just off to his left side. Blinking once, he took in the person that entered in bemused silence._

"_Hakuba…?" All he really could do was stare at the newcomer as the blond slowly made his way over to him. It really was him. He looked different, though. Kaito scrutinized him, carefully noting the differences in his mind, so that he could compare "his" Hakuba with the one that he was presented with right then. The detective was wearing a embroidered light green tunic-like shirt that accentuated his blond hair and Caucasian face nicely. On his head there was a blue-green hat, with a fancy brooch clinging to its side which did not seem out of place at all. The metal on the brooch was in the form of a Celtic knot that was weaving its way around a star with four pointy ends. The detective was also clad in long, dark blue leggings that went with the shirt and ended in gleaming, black shoes. The theme "middle ages" certainly was upheld almost religiously wherever he was and appeared in some fashion everywhere he looked._

_Something was not right, though. Ah, he was limping slightly. A frown marred his face at that. What was wrong? What had happened to the detective? Worried, he regarded the other as the sleuth stopped a passable distance away and kneeled in front of him, bowing low. What was going on?_

_Although when Hakuba looked up, a fond, relieved smile had stretched over the blond's face that put Kaito's mind at ease once more. Whatever had happened was most likely over, then. What he said next however baffled Kaito._

"_There you are, my Prince. Everybody has been looking all over for you. I am glad you are safe and sound."_

… _Prince? The blond went on before Kaito could insert any comment of his own, however._

"_Ever since you have returned everybody's been very worried about you. Please, let us go back to the party and celebrate with the others!" With that, the detective rose from his position on the floor and stood respectfully in front of him, seemingly waiting for a cue to leave._

_Kaito blinked once more, just for good measure. Well, who was he to refuse? If people thought of him as a prince here – wherever _here_ was – it was probably better to just go with the flow and let people think of him as they wanted. A slow smile spread over his face and, nodding once, sharply, he went towards the door that the blond teenager had come from, Hakuba following hot on his heels. So he was a prince, eh? What did that make the sleuth, then?_

_Looking back once when he stopped, hand on the door handle and ready to open it, he gave the other a fond smile. If he didn't already have a position, Kaito knew the perfect spot for him: it was an open position, although without pay checks and holidays, a 24/7 job that came with certain benefits, such as a listening ear and company whenever he'd like some, among others. It was the kind of work that he thought the detective would find taxing at times, funny at others and outright exasperating most of the rest of the time. He'd be the perfect person for that, having already endured so many of Kaito's adventures so far. Oh, yes. In his eyes, the blond teenager would be the best for the job._

_He'd be the most suitable choice for being a friend for Kaito._

_Smirking, Kaito turned his head ahead again. Well, only if he didn't already have a job like that, that was._

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_There was a small, narrow path made of white stones (marble?) that went from the door to a little hole in-between two of the plants making up a hedge that encircled the little garden-like space that the door led to. The hedge itself was towering above him, it was well over two meters, he mused to himself quietly as he looked up. They successfully blocked out the sun. It was a pleasantly warm day, a few clouds were floating by languidly just above his head. He couldn't stop the smile that broadened on his face. At the rate he was going, his face soon would be stuck like that. Kaito didn't think he'd mind that, in the least._

_The noise was much louder once they were outside, now that he paid attention to it. There was laughter, singing and all sorts of funny noises could be made out from the cacophony of noise that reached his ears. It made him curious, to say the least._

_Once he'd gone through the little hole in the hedge, Kaito finally saw what was going on. It appeared as though there was a festival of sorts that was being held. It was a market square that he was looking down on. Balloons hung on all of the lamp posts as far as he could see, colorful flags ran from one house to the other and all sorts of booths and food stalls were set up along the perimeter of the buildings._

_The door they'd gone through was hidden behind some dark green hedges that were going along the side border of the staircase leading up to the huge dome-like building the throne was located in. Now that he'd gone through the hedge, he could see that there was a similar hedge running along the other side of the staircase, as well._

"_Where would you like to go?" Hakuba asked him, coming through the hedge himself._

_Eyes alight with what he could only call joy and resisting the urge to giggle and laugh himself – the easy-going, pleasant atmosphere down there was contagious, he had to admit – he only said "Everywhere!"_

_Shrugging his shoulders, the detective only followed him without a word as he bounded down the staircase excitedly to have a closer look at all the stalls and the theatre that he'd discovered from up on the staircase. He didn't know exactly where he was or what in heaven's name was going on, but as long as he was there he at least wanted to have fun along the way! The weather, the people and their good mood certainly helped in that endeavor._

_The only downside was that he couldn't decipher any of the writings that were on the things that were displayed in all the booths. When he asked the blond, however, he readily gave him the answers, with a long sigh of sufferance to complement his actions. Bemused, the amateur magician had to blink at that. He probably thought that Kaito pretended he couldn't read to get a rise out of him or something the like. Hakuba most certainly looked like he was of this opinion. Shrugging nonchalantly – it worked in his favor regardless, didn't it? –, Kaito proceeded to drag Hakuba along and figure out what kinds of things were displayed in the show cases of the different stalls._

_With wonder at some of the inventions that were shown there – a windscreen wiper for glasses, really? Ingenious, that one! – he absentmindedly pondered how the blond had to have felt immediately upon coming to Japan. Glancing in his direction, the magician-turned-thief reasoned that it must have been similar to what he was going through here, not being able to read anything that he was presented with. How had he survived in school? The brunette thought it must have been quite difficult, living by himself – with his housekeeper only – and that even just going shopping for a coffee must have been a rather unpleasant experience. How did you choose a coffee if all the packages looked similar and can only be distinguished by the things that are written on them – and you could not read even that? He resolutely decided to ask the blond if he could help him to master at least the most used kanji when he was back home._

_It was just his luck that the people here at least spoke a language that he was able to understand._

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_In the end he was immensely grateful that the blond was with him. He'd gotten a lot of information out of him about what had happened – what role he was to play and what was going on and where he was etc. – that he'd otherwise probably never have found out by himself. From the things that the detective implicitly and explicitly told him, he'd pieced together a background story that he found intriguing. Some of the character descriptions Hakuba had given him – with an indefinable mix between a worried and shrewd look like there was a screw loose in Kaito's head or something – reminded him eerily of some of the people that he knew… _back home_._

_The Princess Orchid that he was supposed to have saved from a band of villains some time two weeks ago in the guise of the illustrious personage of the Black Knight sounded a lot like Aoko. Especially when Hakuba went on to describe her appearance it seemed more and more like his childhood friend. Prince Spade, his brother who looked just like him, reminded him very much of Kudo Shinichi, the teenage detective. But that couldn't be, right? It must be someone else. Although he'd very much like to meet this "Prince Spade", the blond sleuth had had to answer him negatively when he'd asked if they could meet up. Apparently, his "brother" had left the day before, for somewhere unknown._

_Ah, it was just as well._

_He was having fun and everybody was in a good mood, having a good time. Kaito didn't worry about "getting back". Somehow he knew he was somewhere that nobody could touch him and where he was safe and that he could always return home if he liked to. It was just a feeling, but the part-time thief had learned to heed his instincts' warnings just as much as he followed his feelings' directions. And if his heart told him that he could trust his surroundings and the people with him – as his senses did just then – he put trust in that. That, however wasn't the only thing that he'd noticed when he was going through the ways that lay in-between the different stalls._

_The most peculiar thing that he'd noticed was the way everybody was treating him. It almost didn't seem to him as though he was a prince – like he'd been added to the normal population and was well-known and well-liked without him even lifting so much as a finger. Even though he could still feel the light weight of the crown-like thing on his head, nobody appeared to take note of this. He'd confirmed it was indeed a crown when he'd briefly glanced into one of the mirrors around a dressing room at one of the clothes stalls. The small thing was more a tiara than a real crown, though. Befitting for a prince, in his opinion. It was pearly-white, with small droplets "falling upwards", so to speak. Seven of them, to be exact. A magical number._

_Concerning the people that were mingling all around him, it seemed to him as though he was a friend of theirs, one of them even. It wasn't an unwelcome feeling by far, he thought. Warmth spread in his heart at the thought that he was… accepted – by them. That he was not above them – well, not only above them, but also one of them, free to roam the streets with the anonymity and privacy of one of their own – a normal citizen, for lack of a better word. He decided he liked that feeling, liked it a lot. Even though they didn't exactly bow, they nodded to him deferentially and managed to give him a respectful berth as he walked through the "alleys" in-between the market stalls with his entourage of one._

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_Not that much time had passed, to him, which was why the sun suddenly starting to disappear behind some of the far-off mountains in the west surprised him so much that he was quite literally stopped in his tracks. Hakuba, who had been close on his heels, naturally ran into him – almost, was it not for the blond's last-second swerve to the left to avoid colliding with him. First, the detective gave him a decidedly strange look, like he wanted to ask if something was wrong with his eyes only, but when he saw what Kaito's eyes were fixated on, he quickly understood. The sun slowly going down into hiding behind the mountains was a most beautiful spectacle, one that he enjoyed beholding no matter where he was. When he glanced back at the sleuth, he glimpsed a genuine smile making its way onto the other's face; which made him smile in return. He'd always liked making other people smile. It was almost like a charm itself, bringing a smile onto another person's lips. And who was to say that it didn't have any effect on the giver, as well? He knew that he would never be able not to enjoy this small, yet powerful feat, no matter how many more faces were alight with a smile in his presence. To him, all smiles were different._

_The warm, yellowish-orange-red sunrays tickled his skin, wishing him a good journey back (wherever that was right then or however he was to get there; at that moment these questions were secondary) and embracing him in their residue, as the sun made more and more of them disappear behind the huge mountains that were shadowed in the far west. The two of them had – as coincidental as it may appear – found the perfect place for regarding the show that the sun put on; front seats, so to speak, even though they only stood off to the right hand side of the now-descending street part, a place where they could look right between two of the buildings and straight towards the mountains and the sunset. From where they were standing they had a broad view of all of that. Sometime after they'd stopped, other people had come and halted in their respective steps, as well, their eyes being captivated by the stunningly beautiful performance of the massive celestial body. Wasn't it magnificent, how the sun's light travelled up the mountains and fields within the valley they were overseeing? To think that this kind of show was put on daily, for their benefit only! Truly, human beings didn't usually embrace the things they were given. Little things like this, those were the things that made life this wonderful, bright and startlingly vivid! Those were the things that life ought to consist of more often, really!_

_This moment was one that he took meticulous care to engrave in his heart and soul. To be honest, watching the sun setting with the detective hadn't even made it close to the top twenty of his priority list. It didn't even come close to his top 100. The sleuth barely was ranking among the things-to-do with his friends, and that only because of their by-then-still-rather-tentative kind of weird sort-of friendship that they practiced nowadays. Tea. An ironic snort escaped him before he could think about it. Glancing to his left, he made sure that the blond hadn't picked it as a sign or interpreted it badly – as he was wont to do at times. Really, Kaito didn't think Hakuba even knew that sometimes people made noises that had nothing at all to do with other people but instead with something they thought in their minds. Well, he didn't think him this unpracticed when it came to human behavior, but it was always better to be on the safer side when these kinds of things were included. Phew. He hadn't noticed. In spite of the snort having been rather loud (at least to Kaito's ears it was), he hadn't even heard it. That was… odd. A tad, at least._

_Sighing a little, Kaito went back to sun-staring, taking it as a given that trying to find out more on that matter wouldn't really be doing him any good at that moment. And the sun would only be going down for about five minutes, after all. Best to enjoy the show, then. Everything else could come later._

_The sun wound its way downwards more and more, until only the very tip of it was visible among the mountain tops' diverse forms and shapes. He was mesmerized. Breathless wouldn't have been the only word to describe what he felt when he took in the wonder of nature that he was a humble witness to this fine evening. Speechless, his eyes filled with more and more amazement at what he was seeing the longer he watched it. Slowly and without noticing, he forgot the ground that his feet stood on, the people that stood behind and to the side of him, the shadow's ascent on his body and that Hakuba, the detective – in this world apparently his friend and helper (he couldn't bring himself to think of the other as being beneath him in any way) –, had been standing right beside him, a comforting presence that provided him with a peaceful calm and quietude which he hadn't been able to find neither in his childhood friend's, nor in his own family yet. Absent-mindedly Kaito mused to himself that maybe that was something that he'd needed all along. A friend, a "buddy" of sorts. A comrade in arms, someone whom he could rely on._

_Almost drunkenly, he drifted sideways, his mind going on a journey without telling him, leaving his body to follow in its wake. Hakuba, the people around them and his surroundings grew blurry, the last sunrays he could pick up with his eyes providing his vision with a speck of light, still. Then the mountain range ahead of him grew hazy around the edges as well, until there was only a blurry shape left where just moments before the sun had gone down. The feeling in his legs, arms and in general in his body left him – while it wasn't an uncomfortable feeling at all, it did feel kind of… weird. As though is body was forced to fall asleep on its own when it was still awake. Well, he supposed, this wasn't any worse than coming there had been. Wherever there was. Mayhap one time, when he felt up to doing this again, he'd like to visit once more. One thing that Kaito had learned from this… dream… was that though this may have been a dream, who was to tell him that it hadn't also been real, in the first place? After all, his perspectives on magic had been completely cast aside and changed when he'd encountered the witch that haunted his classroom, of all things possible. They'd been exchanged for others, more flexible and formable ones which would be able to endure and brave anything that might still come._

_Well, one thing was for sure: to experience the sun going down together with his friends was something he'd make sure to repeat, although next time he'd include Aoko in it, too._

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When he woke up and opened his eyes, the moon and some brightly-shining stars had already stolen the sun's place in the sky. Additionally, a few more clouds had gathered to be illuminated by the few stars' and moon's beams. His school bag lay forgotten beside him as he stretched his arms out in front of him and yawned. That had been… an interesting dream, to say the least. Why he'd dream about himself being a prince, of all things possible, he couldn't fathom. Nevertheless it had been a peaceful dream. The change of scenery had been nice, too. The river's sound reached his ears once more. The birds had to have stopped chirping long ago, he thought.

It was a pity that he didn't have a watch on him. At times like these he found Hakuba's fondness for time and his insistence of knowing the time down to the second quite useful, as rare as those moments were. Ah, but he did have his mobile with him, didn't he? Going through the bag, he managed to unearth it after a few more moments of search. If his mobile's screen was telling the truth – as it did more often than he sometimes wanted it to – it was well past ten o'clock in the evening. Grimacing a little, he wondered what he'd find if he'd raided the kitchen's fridge tonight and slipped the mobile into his pants pocket. Would it be better if he made a small detour and bought some takeout from a sushi takeaway that he knew or would there still be enough in the fridge for him to create something that passed as a meal and did not warrant that nightly hunt for food?

In the end he decided not to leave it to chance and get some takeout. His walk home would take a little longer – the takeout place was located a little off his normal route, but seeing as his stomach rumbled loudly at the mere thought of food, he found it worthwhile to get something already-done into him than to have to start from scratch with a questionable amount of ingredients that he'd find at home.

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Opening the door, he managed to successfully juggle around all the items in his hands without dropping anything. Carefully, he walked in and switched on the lights, with his hands still full of a) his school satchel and b) a comfortably warm Takoyaki takeout box. Silenced welcomed him in, bidding him to take his time. "Tada ima!" the words "I'm home" almost appeared to echo off the walls and greet him mockingly, taunting him with the fact that he was once more by himself, late and hungry. Unfortunately, nobody was ever home these days to reply with the corresponding phrase.

The soothing weight of the Takoyaki bag bounced heartily against his legs, mollifying him for the moment. The door fell shut noisily in the oppressing silence that reigned over the house every time that he came back from school nowadays. The hallway's lamp illuminated practically everything in his near vicinity, snaking into the living room and barely touching the edges of the kitchen floor that were lying in the lazy light beams' path. Shoulders sagging, he carelessly slung the school satchel that he'd been carrying over his right shoulder into one corner of the hallway, close to the staircase, as he himself was making a beeline for the kitchen where he promptly switched on the lights, as well.

He propped the plastic bag holding the Takoyaki box onto the kitchen counter, a delicious scent already wafting out of it, ensnaring him with its aroma and the prospect of getting some long-awaited food into his system sometime soon.

But first he had to gather all the utensils that he'd still need – like napkins. The growing teenager also pulled out a glass from one of the overhead cupboards, filled it with water and switched on the radio that was sitting right beside the sink. The long-since familiar sound of the radio host's voice provided more comfort to him than he'd at first thought. Having gotten used to being by himself, being independent and caring for himself long ago, he nonetheless basked in the false sense of company the radio gave him from time to time. It was amazing how much even this – incorporeal – type of human contact could help him then.

Then he opened the bag and took out the pair of chopsticks that always came with a takeout box; he ripped apart the plastic they'd been wrapped in and gingerly separated them from one another. The smell was mouth-watering. He opened the plastic around the Takoyaki box, musing to himself that he really needed to buy some groceries the next day. He'd need to get some other things, too, like toiletries and some things out of the first aid kit that he'd need to restock some time soon. Putting it onto his mental to-do-list, he set it aside for some further contemplation later on.

Glancing briefly at the white clock hanging to the right of the door at eye-level, he paused in his activity of preparing his dinner to blink, confused for an instant. It couldn't be _that_ late already, could it? The clock-hands – it being an old-fashioned, analog clock – must have gotten stuck again. It happened from time to time, but it certainly was a bother to have happened at that particular time, and that it was in the middle of the night and no clock shop was open any more. No way was it past midnight already! Nevertheless, when he checked the display of his mobile phone after whipping it out of his pants pocket, he had to concede defeat. The 00:38 shining back at him couldn't be refuted as easily as the analog clock's display could be. Laying it on the kitchen counter to the left of the glass of water, he regaled it with a slight glare for proving him wrong.

Closing his eyes, the teenager looked away after a few more moments of glaring. Right. Kaito hadn't thought it had taken him this long to make that detour and get home. The amateur magician supposed it was a good thing that his house was located in a fairly quiet, uneventful neighborhood and that his daily way to and from school couldn't be considered unsafe, either. Now, he didn't have any problems dealing with trouble if it came his way, but that day he definitely preferred not having to handle any of that. He had to cope with enough annoying people at school already, Koizumi – and kinda-maybe also sort of Hakuba – falling into that category; he really could do without any more nuisances on his way home.

Quirking an amused eyebrow at the still only partially opened Takoyaki box, he thought that – his mother notwithstanding – he probably was the worst criminal to be found in this particular area; Koizumi and Hakuba, after all, lived in different wards altogether. Well, at least the most professional one, he acknowledged not-so-humbly. And it didn't help that the one police inspector who was assigned to his case lived just side-by-side with him, either. Wasn't it ironic how life worked sometimes?

The delightfully innocent smell of his dinner quickly brought him back to earth and made his stomach rumble loudly in its desperate, latest demand for the meal to be brought to his mouth already. With the radio as a blurring-together background noise, he finally tucked in. "Itadakimasu!" – the obligatory "thank-you-for-the-meal", said in as fast a fashion as it could ever be spoken, preceded the unscrupulous attack on the defenseless Takoyaki lying in the box by mere seconds.

Less than fifteen minutes later he was done eating and already putting away the remnants of his veritably devoured "midnight snack". Dropping the used chopsticks together with the box back into the plastic bag, he put that into the bin and made made to get his satchel from the entryway, switching off both the radio and the lights in the kitchen on his way out. Bowing down in front of his school bag, he contemplated the wisdom of doing his homework now versus doing it in the morning, right before school… which would in turn mean he'd have to get up in less than six hours from then.

He had no illusions about not being able to do it then – he'd pulled it off more times than he could count if he added the nights he gallivanted around as Kaitô Kid to the equation – the trouble was that he would most probably mind doing it then because it would mean waking up earlier than usual rather than going to sleep later. It was a matter of principle, to be exact. And his mind wasn't exactly in mint condition at the moment, either, holding actual decision-making up longer than was normal for him. In comparable situations, with the question being about more important matters he'd be able to think about it and find a solution in no time. Nevertheless, if it did not consist of any life-threatening or life-changing problems and it had to be decided in the middle of the night, then however much sleep he might have gotten beforehand – and this time he actually had taken a long nap in the afternoon at that riverbank –, his mind didn't do more but respond sluggishly to his commands.

Phew. Sighing aloud, he gave an extremely tired look to the school satchel lying innocently on the floor close to the staircase. It would probably be better if he put it off until the morning – then he at least might feel up to doing more than smearing a few pages and falling asleep on top of the open school book once more like he'd done that other time that he'd had this dilemma already. Surely it went without saying that back then he'd gone with the "sooner rather than later" approach. It hadn't worked out like he'd thought it would at all.

But honestly, this was ridiculous! They'd not even had school that afternoon and he still hadn't managed to do the homework until the next day?! He could hit himself over the head for sleeping all of the afternoon away. Mentally, he was already doing so. Physically, he didn't think he'd be able to do more than carry his school satchel up the stairs to his room. So he took the satchel's straps into his right hand and, dragging it behind him in a listless fashion he proceeded to go upstairs. Exhausted, the first thing that he did once he was in his room was to chuck the school bag – together with his school uniform's jacket – into the corner farthest from his bed. This way, he'd have to get up to get his phone in order to switch off the alarm… which reminded him: where had his mobile disappeared off to? No. Rewind, stop and play: better question. Where had he seen it last?

The kitchen. The thought came unbidden to his head, not even needing any more prompting for his fabulous memory to spur into action. Great. Then he'd have to go downstairs once more, just to get it. About twenty more steps that he could have saved himself if he'd thought to bring it with him upstairs before he'd exited the kitchen. At that time of night – and with his body acting as exhausted as it was (_Why ever was that the case? Hadn't he slept in the afternoon?_) – every single step felt like a milestone that he had to somehow overcome in order to aim for the next. To his bleary, tired eyes, there simply didn't seem an end in sight of the things that bothered him. Letting his head fall down dejectedly, he turned around and continued to drag his body out the door and in the direction of the stairs to, once more, head downwards and retrieve the wayward mobile.

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It wasn't thirty seconds later that he crossed his own kitchen's threshold for the nth time that day. Sometimes the days just seemed to become longer and longer with every step he made. Grabbing the mobile from the counter rather angrily, he turned around, only to frown once more. It was as though the analog clock wanted to put up a fight with him. Why was it that time was working against him these days? The big hand on the clock was almost on twelve – only about ten seconds left or so –, so far so good, but the smaller one was on the wrong side of the twelve, in his opinion. No way was it one o'clock already! Just as he was pondering what was wrong with the time nowadays, something weird happened. The doorbell rung. What the hell…?

Blinking in confused befuddlement, he at first thought that his ears had been playing tricks on him, it being one o'clock in the morning already (_he'd thrown a glance at the analog clock for confirmation of the truth to what he'd just read off the display of his mobile_) and him being none the more awake for it. Then again, he was currently standing in the door way of the kitchen, more or less with the entrance door in his sight diagonally opposite of him and – there it was again. His ears weren't deceiving him, then. He quickly crossed the distance to the entrance door and peered through the peephole to determine who it was that thought it funny to go and ring other people's doorbells in the middle of the night. Darkness met his eyes. Of course.

Even with the peephole, because the closest street lamp just had to be broken he wouldn't really be able to see much. Although he had to wonder. Hadn't there been a full moon just the day before? Looking through the small hole once more, he determined that the moonlight that came in from above apparently wasn't enough to render him able to discern anything or anyone that might be standing on the front porch of his house at that time. Which in itself was strange enough already. Coupled with the weird shadowy thing in front of the peephole, he didn't want to take any chances and palmed one of the things he always kept in his pockets for just such an occasion.

With the little silent light bomb resting in his left hand now, he felt reasonably safe to take on whatever came his way at this time of night. His tiredness having blown away like a tornado had come over him all of a sudden once he'd ascertained the suspiciousness of the few things that he had in his hands, he was acutely aware of something else that felt absurdly _wrong_ to him about this situation. Try as he might, though, he couldn't say for sure just what had irked him about all this.

The only thing still left for him to do was to open the door – which he did, and fast; in order to possibly have the element of surprise on his side and catch anyone lurking outside off guard, regardless of who it may turn out to be.

Nobody.

He stepped out briefly, all the while on his guard in case he was accosted all of a sudden. It was good that he hadn't emptied his pockets yet. Putting his left hand close to his side and hiding the small round ball of the light bomb between his hand and his trousers, he showed off a relaxed, careless attitude to anyone who was interested. Ever so slowly, he ventured further outside, turning in place and scanning the area as best as he could. He'd been correct: a decreasing full moon was shining brightly in the night sky, a fact to which he hadn't paid much attention before, when he'd been going to the Takoyaki place and subsequently arrived at home a little less than half an hour ago. Nothing seemed or felt out of place – anymore.

What was the meaning of this? His instincts – and in extension his feelings – hadn't proven wrong yet. Something had been… "_off_", so to speak, although it apparently wasn't any more. What had changed? Something was different now compared to about two minutes ago before he'd opened the door. Slowly, he walked backwards, towards the door again, watching out for anything that might catch his eye in the nightly scenery before him. This situation got increasingly stranger the more he stood outside, he felt. And he didn't like the feeling. Nothing happened, though.

Well, until the back of his foot hit something, that was. His gaze traveled downwards in painful slowness, almost dreading what he might find there. Which was simply ridiculous; the worst thing that there could be was a dead rat or something that the neighbor's cat had brought to his house's entrance door once more. It didn't normally occur all that rarely, he thought to himself, though he hadn't lost any of his initial disgust towards this particular habit of the rather spoiled, well-known cat.

Instead, when he moved a little ways away from whatever was dropped on his doorstep at this time of night, he saw that it was very different from what a rat looked like. It wasn't anything that he recognized as a kind of animal, either. "This is something else entirely, isn't it?" Kaito thought to himself quietly. What it was, though, he couldn't even begin to guess at, seeing as it was caked in shadow because he was blocking the light of the moon from shining onto it with his own body. Moving aside, he was quickly reduced to simply staring speechlessly and with an open mouth at what had been deposited in front of his door.

Now, this – _this_ – he hadn't expected, at all.

A hand, five fingers and nails and everything, was lying innocently right in front of him on the floor leading up to the front door of his home. The only thing this hand was missing – which was the trigger that rendered the whole situation so very morbid and all the more eerie for it – was an attached arm and body.

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**AN**: A _CLIFFHANGER_! Yay! I've already established that I'm good at those, right? Hope you liked it despite the introspection and please do leave me a **review**! It will be appreciated, I promise!

Ah, rofl? I can hear the groans from here… "Oh no, she's started yet another fanfiction! She'll NEVER finish her other ones…!"… nope. I actually finished this one – wrote it during the whole month of October, just for your information. And am only now posting it because, well, these are the days when the events in it take place!

In addition to that I would like to_** THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING!**_

Next chapter comes online **Tomorrow**!


	2. Sound In Wind And Limb

**Sound in Wind and Limb**

**Disclaimer**: Everything belongs to Gosho Aoyama, honorable creator of Detective Conan and Magic Kaito.

**AN:** Anybody willing to beta this?

For your information: the events in this second installment take place on the day of the 29.10.!

Vocabulary issues: Gomen = short, informal form of "Gomen nasai", meaning "Sorry".

**Warning**: a lot of introspection, _thinking_ and overly descriptive language. Anybody who doesn't like reading that a lot, consider yourself warned! ;_D Also: beware of slight Spoilers for two of my fanfictions in this second chapter: they're called _**Tea, Anyone?**_, _**Letter To Myself **_and _**Roller Coaster Murder Case**_! And, because I just had to include them, any direct quotations from any of my other fanfictions will be written _**like this**_.

Also: I am SO messing with both Magic Kaito's and Detective Conan's timeline in this chapter… Please excuse any and all inconsistencies or problems that may arise; I am disregarding a whole bunch of the DC episodes, seeing as most of them are fillers, anyways, and others just don't fit into my scheme for this fanfiction. Seeing as it's only a couple chapters long, incorrigibly and absurdly finishing what I think should have happened long before now, I simply don't care at this moment in time. Maybe later on I'll correct the chapters – once I've found a willing beta and done Nanowrimo for this year, that is – and rewrite things, but as of now I've only just finished writing this fanfiction, am on the lookout (_read: on the hunt_) for anything even remotely resembling a beta-reader and am absolutely proud of myself for a) coming up with this in the first place, b) managing to get it put online on exactly the day on which I planned to do so and c) for writing it all out within a single month only. Kudos to me! (_The real things, please!_)

I sincerely thank you for your understanding and hope you enjoy it irregardless: now, please make yourself comfortable, take some previously-prepared fruit tea into your hands, add some deliciously sweet smelling cookies and fluff up your pillow once more: _**the story shall continue!**_

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_Instead, when he moved a little ways away from whatever was dropped on his doorstep at this time of night, he saw that it was very different from what a rat looked like. It wasn't anything that he recognized as a kind of animal, either. "This is something else entirely, isn't it?" Kaito thought to himself quietly. What it was, though, he couldn't even begin to guess at, seeing as it was caked in shadow because he was blocking the light of the moon from shining onto it with his own body. Moving aside, he was quickly reduced to simply staring speechlessly and with an open mouth at what had been deposited in front of his door._

_Now, this – __this__ – he hadn't expected, at all._

_A hand, five fingers and nails and everything, was lying innocently right in front of him on the floor leading up to the front door of his home. The only thing this hand was missing – which was the trigger that rendered the whole situation so very morbid and all the more eerie for it – was an attached arm and body._

To say that Kaito was confused would be a blatant understatement. A hand! There was a severed hand lying on his doorstep! He stared at the cut-off limb like it was the first time that he'd ever seen a hand in his life. The hand was… weird, to be honest. It seemed like a normal run-off-the-mill hand, if one could call it that. Goosebumps made their way all over his frame at the thought. It had been – as already stated – cut off at the wrist; though he wasn't looking at the stump's side from where he was standing. Instead, the fingers were pointing straight towards him in an almost unnatural way.

Frowning he thought about what struck him as odd about that hand after the initial shock of finding it on his doorstep (of all places possible!) had worn off. Bemused, he held up his own right hand to the light – for it was a right hand that was lying in front of him; the thumb was on its left side – to compare the two. Five fingers, yes, that kind of inventory he'd taken already. One whole hand, artery and vein blood vessels clearly visible underneath the pearly-white, pale fabric of skin that was stretched taut over the knuckles… there. That was wrong. Having been shocked out of his nightly routine preparations for going to sleep rather unwillingly, his brain was by then quite deliberately sluggish at responding to his queries.

The skin – that was what felt wrong to him the most. It was lying far too tightly across the hand, it almost seemed like someone had pulled an inflated balloon over the general outline of a hand – normal skin did not behave like this at all. Normal skin was formed, had little bulges and wrinkles where it fit snugly across the knuckles, muscles and tendons. It usually gave off the air of a real-life _skin_, for lack of a better word. That was why terms and collocations like "something fits like a second skin" existed. The type of skin he was facing, however, was most unnatural as it stretched over the internal build-up of the hand like the skin wanted to pull it into place. Instead of the skin being pliable, subject to the muscles', tendons' and bones' daily movement, here it appeared to have been the other way around.

Anybody with such a hand would not have been able to move it, let alone do anything manually. It would have felt as though the whole limb was paralyzed, stiff, rigid and – most probably – numb. Absurdly having gained courage from that thought, the teenager grew daring, kneeled down in front of the limb – which he by then _knew_ (via scrutinizing the texture and noticing some make-up rests clinging to the "skin" in the pale moonlight and the light coming from his entryway where he shouldn't have found any) was a fake one, a stage prop most likely –, extended a finger towards it and lightly poked it. A shudder ran through him at the comparison that his mind drew up at the image that he was presented with upon touching the hand: it moved almost as though it was a toy, only-just not flopping over, but still twitching seemingly endlessly, even after his hand had moved away again. It was decidedly creepy.

With two fingers, he carefully picked up the eerily real-looking stage prop at the ring finger. No blood, nothing fluid came out of the… stump… where it had been "cut off", lending yet more (at this point rather unneeded) credence to its status as a fake. Gingerly, he transported it into the house, closing and locking the front door as he went. Almost in a trance, he went into the kitchen, switched on the light there once more and walked the few steps that separated him from the kitchen counter, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the fake extremity that had infiltrated his life at this unholy hour.

Only when he put it down on the kitchen counter did he look up, turn around and chance yet another glance at the depressing directions of the hands of the analog clock hanging to the right of the door. He closed his eyes in determination, willing the hands to have moved backwards in a last instant of defiance. Opening them again, he could only conclude that for tonight he wouldn't be up for much more. Kaito didn't even want to start on the limb at that moment.

Shoulders sagging in exhaustion, the teenager switched off the light in the kitchen, dragged himself out into the entryway once more and slowly made his way upstairs. The bed would be an absolutely welcome sight at this point in time, he mused tiredly. He forewent the usual routine of brushing his teeth – he could always just do it in the morning if he felt like it –, put his alarm clock to the correct time (_less than five hours later – where __had__ his time run off to without informing him?_) and switched off the light in both the hallway and his room; he'd find his bed in no time and without any visual aids, having lived here long enough, he knew. Unceremoniously, he then proceeded to haul his body there in a last effort and fall into bed, still wearing his school uniform. The teenage-thief didn't mind, however, seeing as he was asleep in a matter of seconds after his head hit the pillow.

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Naturally, Kaito got woken up at yet another unholy hour by his alarm clock; he was sure there was a theme in there somewhere… someone wanted to make fun of him out there somehow. Now, if he only could decide whom to blame for this, he'd be happy already. Stretching like a cat, a major yawn escaped him. Blearily, he opened his eyes. Everything came to him at once. He was skeptic though: surely Kaito must have been dreaming; a hand? Lying on his doorstep? Yeah, right. That was a hallucination, right there.

Kaito supposed that he should probably get up before his body decided that sleep would be a far better course of action right now. Not that his brain wasn't already staggeringly aware that it was. Sighing, he supposed that he'd always be able to get in a few more hours of sleep at school, if not in the afternoon – he cheered up immensely when he thought of the mysterious event that would continue occupying their school's premises for the day, meaning the pupils would be let out earlier than usual that day, as well. Ah, those adult seminars/congresses/conventions/conferences/whatever certainly had their perks!

Much more awake than a bare minute ago, he sat up in bed, locating his school satchel with his eyes. A grimace flitted across his face in a matter of seconds, there and gone again. That was correct. He'd still have to do his homework in the time that was left between now and the start of school for the day. Gee, and to think: he'd almost forgotten about that particular nuisance, too!

XXX

He was standing in the middle of his room when his phone beeped to signal an incoming text message. Usually, Aoko would pick him up at his house (which can be translated as kicking him out of bed more often than not) around fifteen to twenty minutes before school started. This was why, when he received a text message on his mobile about five minutes before she'd physically appear on his doorstep, he was rather confused to find out the SMS was from his long-haired childhood friend.

Standing in the middle of his room – he'd just finished and packed away his homework and books and was looking for a washed school uniform that he could wear that day – and holding his mobile phone in his hands, he was wearing a very baffled expression on his face. Why would she text him at (he snatched a weary look at the right hand upper corner of his mobile's display)… a time far too early in the morning? Moreover, _what_ would she write him this bloody early in the morning?

Well, nothing was easier than to figure out the answer to this second question. Shifting his fingers, he one-handed commandeered the text message to be opened. A few moments later, he was perusing her writing with ever-growing curiosity.

_Nakamori Aoko, 29.10., 08:37._

_Kaito-kun,_

_I cannot come to pick you up _

_for school today. I have something _

_major to tell you and something _

_just as important to ask of you; _

_can we meet up sometime later?_

_Aoko._

Blinking, he reread the text in building consternation and befuddlement. She wasn't ill again, was she? No, she'd have explicitly stated it if she was, or at least given him a more obvious clue. Scanning the message once more, he started to wonder. His eyebrows drew together in the tender beginnings of a frown. Would it be useful in any way to get worried, now? No. This knowledge didn't exactly keep him from thinking about what might have – could have – happened, but if he caught himself asking how he could help her and imagining worst case scenarios that he'd deduced could have happened/could be happening from what little she'd sent him, there was no one stopping him from doing so.

Typing a quick text back (_I'll come over at six_) he regretted having to spend the afternoon revising his plans for the upcoming Kid heist the very next day. Yes, the evening preceding Halloween would belong to him; though he'd have preferred the late night of All Hallows Eve itself as date of choice for the heist, he'd already _promised_ Aoko he'd accompany her to that stupid Policemen's Ball at eight in the evening of that very same day. His guilty conscience sometimes wouldn't shut up about all the other missed and delayed promises he'd made her already; in order to appease it he'd agreed – and he fully intended to keep this promise. It helped, that she'd just told him that her father had gotten a spare ticket; he wouldn't have to be her escort or entourage or anything of the sort, but could enjoy the evening together with his best friend. That didn't exclude him teasing her, naturally.

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When he arrived downstairs, school satchel in his left and his school uniform's jacket in his right hand, Kaito put both on the floor in the entryway, turning towards the kitchen to grab some last-minute breakfast about five to ten minutes after having received Aoko's SMS. Nevertheless, when he wanted to cross the threshold into the kitchen, he froze, realizing that he'd absolutely forgotten something that he'd wanted to find out more about just last night before going to sleep. Awww, and he'd _so_ wanted that to have been in his dreams!

Making himself unfreeze nigh a moment later, he decided to tackle that particular mystery later – he was running slightly late by then and didn't have neither the patience nor the time to do anything more about it now. Hastily opening the sideboard cupboard and grabbing a piece of undone toast from the package, he ran off again, the cupboard's door falling shut in his wake. The teenager greedily shoved it in his mouth, lightly munching on it, as he darted out, snatched up his jacket and school bag and practically flew out the door, only barely managing to pause in his hectic scramble to close and lock the front door behind himself in a rare moment of early morning lucidity. And then he was off to school already.

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It was strange, he quietly mused to himself, what people could get used to if exposed to for long enough a time. The guy right in front of him kept twitching every so often, the girls diagonally behind him only barely refrained from giggling and the teacher was constantly throwing suspicious looks towards him that not only distracted the other pupils from the topic they were dealing with but were also slowly starting to weird Kaito out a little bit, to be honest. The whole class seemed to be sitting on needles, dancing around him as though he was an explosive missile that had somehow found its way into their classroom and would be set off at the least provocation. Everybody was on edge because normalcy was something they apparently wouldn't be subjected to during any of today's lessons. They all were nervous because the main actors for once didn't feel up to doing anything other than participate in the lessons and pay attention to the teachers. In general, the two for once behaved how the teachers most probably wanted them to behave all year, and yet this appeared to be the one thing nobody was really prepared for, coming from them.

Snorting, Kaito reckoned that this honestly did not come as a surprise to him. After all, he was the one that usually kept his classmates on their toes, pranking them and making their lives as interesting as he could. Thus it was no wonder that everyone excepting himself and a select few others was completely taken off-guard when he for once didn't do anything. No, their behavior certainly was predictable, sometimes.

What had astounded him and as a consequence puzzled him quite a bit, though, was the fact that one certain person was present that he'd frankly believed to be absent that day. Indeed he hadn't counted on Aoko gracing the class with her presence the very day that she'd told him she wouldn't be able to pick him up for school. Ah, not that he needed picking up to come to school (every once in a while). It was just that the stubborn girl had acquired the habit of doing so ever since he'd missed out a whole week of his schooling in Middle School, about half of which he'd skipped on purpose.

Now, Aoko had indeed come to school, as if she hadn't informed him that she couldn't come to school with him that day and in spite of everything pointing to the contrary. (she hadn't outright said anything about not being there that day, he had to concede grudgingly, it had only been his assumption; however, what other reason was there for her not to pick him up like normal and writing him a text message, instead?) As a consequence, Kaito thought himself very much justified in ignoring her.

Needless to say that him ignoring her led to one very calm day full of uninterrupted and fruitful lessons spanning out before a class whose members and teachers simply didn't know how to deal with that, funnily enough. In fact, they were downright overwhelmed with and some of them even scared because of the absence of chaos and mischief that was offered to them. In all honesty, it was a feat that no one thought he'd be able to ever achieve, making his own classmates this skittish around his quietness and silence. It showed everybody who cared that Kaito could easily run circles around people if he so chose. Nobody did care, fortunately for him.

Nonetheless, he'd still not been able to solve the mystery around his brown-haired childhood friend when break time rolled around. But unless she began talking to him, he wouldn't so much as look at her. And if he was literally acting like a kid this time, it didn't matter to him. Glancing at her frame out of the corner of his eye he absolutely couldn't fathom why she'd go this out of her way to talk to him privately.

As he was sitting on his chair, contemplating this, he was approached by a person that he'd had a just as tentative – even if far different – relationship with. Indeed, his link with Hakuba was quite the unusual one, as well. The latest developments between the two of them – especially concerning his alter ego – had certainly put the ground they were standing on under a lot of pressure. It was uncertain, unsure, where exactly they would be going with this, although it apparently wouldn't lead to him being locked up in prison any time soon. That only scratched out one possible outcome of this whole… tiptoeing around one another, however. Blinking, he noticed that the blond had long since halted in front of his desk, waiting to be acknowledged.

"What is it?" the sentence mayhap came out a little more gruffly than he'd intended for it to, with a deeper hue added to his own voice. It wasn't on purpose that he'd tried making himself sound older and more self-assured than he was when talking to the detective in a normal school setting. The change between them had been unsettling for him, too. Kaito wasn't usually the type of person who was against change. Well, not against the good kind of change, at least. But this… understanding-of-sorts that they'd come to had no fixed rules (yet) and the two of them hadn't technically arrived at it through any legal means, either. It didn't paint a good picture for their future interactions when he was the one who wasn't following the law that the other so obviously abided by. There was more of a chance of this backfiring on him than it there was for the sleuth to experience too many negative repercussions _after_ something changed, once more. The part time thief was sure it would happen sometime soon, too: all the signs pointed towards their temporary truce to come to an end. And it kind of was included in the word, already: "temporary."

"I need your input for a case that I'm working on. I was told you were there when it happened." To Kaito, it was glaringly clear who'd provided him with the information. Eyebrows climbing upwards, the brunette regarded the other appraisingly, running several possible ways that their conversation could continue with, as well as all the cases he'd ever been involved with through his head at a speed unmatched by any runner. Which one did he mean? Intrigued, he indulged the blond and asked him when the detective didn't immediately go on.

"… And what would that case be about?"

"I cannot say." Shifting his eyes and letting them roam the classroom in a carefully controlled inconspicuous-looking once-over of the people in attendance, the detective made Kaito understand that he simply wouldn't say it in front of so many people all at once. A rueful grin stole over his face. It went without saying that he knew of all the wrong ears that could by chance pick up on the information and sell it to newspapers for good money, depending on the quality and quantity. He himself had prodded the idea of formulating his plans and/or writing them down during class with a stick and from a safe distance away because at the time he'd begun his moonlighting activities he hadn't known much about how High School pupils would handle it and if it could possibly lead to his downfall. Thus, he hadn't done more than draw abstract doodles into his note books and not ever taken any of his plans or various to-do-lists to school.

Not that he needed many of these, his memory was good enough that he could remember what he'd need to buy or set up for an upcoming heist without having to rely on a flimsy piece of paper and the easily-smudging ink of a pen to tell him. It was that he was thinking along these lines – and totally gotten off-track for anyone who cared to take record – when Hakuba went on, heedless of whatever the thief's response to that admission would have been. (_Once he'd finally pulled himself out of those pesky, continuously-returning introspective thoughts_)

"I'm sorry." Bringing a hand up to massage the side of his head, the standing teenager had a warring expression on his face. Kaito vaguely noticed that the sleuth had closed his eyes. (_When had he done that?_) When he opened them again, his hand moved downwards once more to rest by his side, drawing Kaito's eyes down with it for a brief moment, before he looked the other into the eyes once more, waiting for what followed that misplaced declaration. What was he sorry for?

"I – you, rather, - are invited to come to my place this afternoon, if you'd please. I really want to bring that case to a close sometime soon, but as of yesterday I am quite stuck, I'm afraid. I – this case, it is a very… personal one, one could say. If you could give me your testimony – nothing else, I swear – I'd be happy already. I don't need you to stay for longer than necessary, or if you don't want to do it at my house, that would be fine, as well, but I just can't think of a better place at the moment and-"

"Wait!" with this and an accompanying hand gesture slicing the plain air in-between them, he forcefully cut the detective off. Absent-mindedly he noticed that the other had worked himself up a lot, his eyes swiveling from one side to the other and almost letting the request develop into an outright rant (_an entirely new thing to imagine, concerning who he was_). The blond had never done so, never mind him being this flustered before, no matter what Kaito had done to him. Hakuba had never been this… nervous, almost. And it was in that exact moment he realized just why the Hakuba heir had worn such a bifid expression on his face bare seconds ago. The blond had actively tried to find a way out of this for him. He hadn't wanted to "corner" him – hadn't wanted to invite him to his home at all, it seemed – and yet, the only place possible for them to safely discuss whatever things that required them not to talk about them in "public" and not have anybody else listen in.

Naturally, Kaito knew just how good the ears walls had when nobody paid attention to them. One could be an expert at being covert and still be overheard in the most crucial moment by the one person they absolutely did _**not**_ want to be overheard by. The Kuroba heir carefully evaluated his options. There was always the chance to refuse, claiming he'd have something else to do, or a date that he couldn't miss out on that day. The blond had even deliberately given him a way out of this, he could just say "no" without giving any reasons and it wouldn't appear too rude in this kind of situation. Nonetheless, he'd gotten curious.

Gee, his curiosity would be the dead of him one day. He'd never backed down from a challenge either, though, and he wouldn't start doing so now of all times. And walking into the house of the head of the Metropolitan Police Force – being invited to do so, of all things, even – definitely sounded like a challenge worth facing. "Bring it on!" he thought to himself. So it was with a decidedly ironic smirk that he agreed to the sleuth's plans.

XXX

When school left out, he followed Hakuba, instead of going with Aoko– _who was still ignoring him like he was so much hot air filling the space!_ –, breaking their tradition, and went right in lieu of taking the left once they were out of the school area. They went along quietly, each young adult lost in his own clutter of thoughts. What had he done wrong? _Had_ he done something wrong, even? Why was Aoko behaving like this? Was he over thinking her actions? Was it him she was angry at? _Was_ she even angry? She surely didn't exhibit any signs that implied this state of mind. Usually, when she was angry, she'd chase him – with a mob, a broom, anything long and with a thick end to it – and that was that. He'd avoid getting hit by her, maybe even let her hit him once or twice on purpose, and after a few of those, her anger would cool down to acceptable levels once more. Their classmates already put it down as "some kind of weird flirting technique" they employed whenever they did their routine, but it was far more than that to the two of them.

It was a way to calm down, a welcome outlet for the stress that had been building up before and also a way to work off their energy all at once. Heh. Trouble was brewing if she didn't chase him with a mob for once! Sighing, the junior magician knew that – without the brunette-haired girl – he wouldn't be getting anywhere anytime soon. Someone please instruct him the mysterious ways that girls worked!

XXX

It certainly was a first for him, walking alongside a guy instead of Aoko, he mused. First off, they weren't talking – much. The few directions that the blond gave him every few corners didn't officially count as "talking". Or was that what the other thought of as "Small Talk"? If he was like that to everybody he'd invited to his house, the brown-haired boy knew why he didn't have too many friends in Japan, yet. A state of affairs that he'd decided to change, and soon. Everybody needed friends. Heck, if he didn't have Aoko, he knew he'd be out of the game that was life already! Just look at what a mess he'd been in those days in elementary school… No. Shaking his head, he resolved not to think about that, of all things, and ruin the mood – not that there was much of it in existence in the first place, but that was beside the point.

Well. Whatever was going through the other's head at that moment? Letting his bangs fall slightly into his face, he glanced at him from beneath them, thinking that it must be a very lonely life that the sleuth led. Did he _ever_ talk to anybody other than him or Aoko at school? He'd certainly never seen him do so in all the time that he'd spent there already. Hakuba didn't initiate conversations. He talked back – in the worst sense of the words – whenever he was spoken to, but other than that… even while class was in session he'd never stick up his hand and give the answer before being called upon. Whenever he _was_ called upon by any teacher there happened to be, he did give the correct answer, but he never volunteered them of his own accord.

That was weird, though. If he had all the correct answers, why would-? Kaito knew even before he'd finished that thought. It was exactly what he was doing nowadays: he wanted to avoid being the top of the class. The answers to his questions came to him a little bit after he'd started to think up those selfsame questions. But why? He probably didn't want to stick out and be called a nerd, an overachiever, by the other people in class. Not that that had kept him from being called a stuck-up twit by Kaito yet, but well. He did that to everyone, the amateur magician thought in the private confines of his mind. Kaito didn't discriminate between his (future) victims. At one point in time, everybody in class had been a victim of him and one of his pranks in one form or another.

Ah, the blond probably hadn't known that when he'd been targeted. That was a blind spot right there that he hadn't seen until he'd properly thought about it! Frowning, he attempted to remember that time. No, the blond hadn't talked to many people in their class when he'd arrived – only Aoko had been so bold as to almost immediately start a conversation with him. And well, everybody had seen what _that_ had led to. With slanted eyes, Kaito promised to himself that he wouldn't ever let that happen/turn out like this ever again! Gee, if it had been up to him, the blond would have had something much worse than an injured pride to deal with. A grimace fleeted across his mouth, there and gone again.

Heh. It didn't do to dwell on the past far too much, as he was right then. Sighing, the dark-haired boy turned towards his avowed nemesis and/or co-conspirator in terms of Not Getting Caught. The other had stated it – implicitly, and even explicitly that one time – openly enough for him to pick up on it. That particular thread weaved through their conversations often enough: Hakuba wouldn't arrest him, at least not anytime soon and not during their tea sessions. So, what about them now? Would he keep his… promise? Would he continue the trend that he'd started? There was only one solution to the dilemma that Kaito was facing: No better way to go about finding out where they stood, in their civilian identities, than to outright ask him, right? So that was what he did.

"What exactly… is it that you do in your free time?" Ah, there went his chance. Really now, he should tell his mouth more often to consult with his brain. Whatever. Kaito could go with that, as well. It had the potential to lead somewhere new, after all. And it was an interesting thought, to be frank. What did the sleuth do in his free time – of which he had to have a lot to spare, Kaito thought rather more ruefully than he would have less than a year ago. After all, what did one do when one did not meet up with friends and/or spend one's time being social? The detective, apparently, took to solving murder cases, as he told him in his reply.

"Murders? Really?" was his incredulous exclamation, both eyebrows shooting up into his hairline in undisguised surprise. He got a detached-yet-somehow-outraged defensive look back for that. Kaito reckoned that that was the Hakuba heir's way of dealing with what he perceived as an indirect (or, not so indirect, as the thief realized in retrospect) attack on his person.

"What about me solving murders is it that you find this shocking?" he not-quite demanded to know. For his defense, he hadn't meant for it to sound this… dismissive. Disdainful, even. That condescending tone had stolen into his utterance without him even meaning for it to. It would have been appropriate for their day-to-day interaction at school, but right there on the street, when they were just as anonymous as the next person, he could decide to let his masks fall down and have a harmless, normal conversation with the blond. Unfortunately for both, this conscious "letting go of their masks and their habitually competitive arguments" was one very difficult thing to do, as the two of them had to learn the hard way.

Forcefully putting aside both his misguided anger (_the other had only defended himself; he'd have done the same thing if their roles were reversed, so why was he angry?_) and letting his cutting remark die on his tongue, the part time thief went about explaining what he'd meant; something he'd never yet had to do with _anyone_. Sometimes, the detective was exasperatingly irritating without even trying to be.

"No, I… didn't mean it like that. Gomen. It was just… you're already a detective, right?" The answering nod he got when he regarded the other was a cautious, hesitant one. He plunged on, "So you solve murder cases when you're asked to do so." Kaito was relieved when understanding slowly filled the sleuth's face like water did an amphora. The tension in their shoulders visibly receded, too, which was a definite plus in Kaito's book. No fighting was necessary to hold a conversation with the blond. He continued by asking a question that he was now majorly interested in,

"Why would you do this in your free time, too?" Hakuba's face didn't close up as he'd assumed it would. The slightly bigger teenager could have blocked his question, answered with one of his own or changed the topic entirely; he'd left the conversational lead up to him, trusting him to steer it into a direction that both of them would feel comfortable with. Implicitly, that meant he'd be ok with the blond teenager being something of a partner-of-sorts. An equal, if one wanted to call it that. Did that mean for him… that he'd found someone he trusted? A… new friend, even? Aoko would laugh him in the face, he knew, if he ever told her just whose hands he'd decided to put his… life into. Hadn't they fought like cats and dogs just the other day? He wasn't left with much more time as the other finally found an appropriate formulation for answering his question.

"I… have been doing this – solving cases, clearing up murders – ever since coming to Japan." Glancing up shortly from his continuous perusal of the floor in front of them as they walked down the walkway, he almost seemed to feel the need to clarify. "Also before I came here I found myself in the company of murder victims and the police more often than not. Ever since I found out that I have a penchant for bringing to light the truth about murders and arresting the murderers, I have taken on the role as a detective more by happenstance than because I really wanted to." Pensively the two teenagers beheld the Hakuba mansion – for it truly was quite the sight to see – that was coming up in front of them.

"… Force of circumstances doesn't quite cut it, does it?" Wryly amused, he quirked up the corner of his mouth that was on the detective's side a little in a sympathetic almost-smile while he supposed that for him everything had happened almost mirror-like to what had come to pass on the blond's side of things half a day's travel away on the other side of the globe. The irony of the situation certainly did not escape his notice. The two of them had more in common, he'd gradually found out over the course of the past half year, than what he'd at first believed for them to. They apparently shared far more than their mutually differing appearances led anybody to believe – themselves included.

The teenage detective glanced at him shortly, seemingly weighing his options to answer that softly-spoken statement that could be taken as a kind-of maybe admission on the moonlighting magician's part, before he decided to deign the other with a more sophisticated and far more welcome declaration that was testimony to their progressing relationship as well as their level of ease around one another.

"No. No, it doesn't."

XXX

Kaito was sitting in one of the comfortably cushioned light brown chairs of Hakuba's working room in the mansion's left side wing. Funnily enough, they completely went with the blond haired teenager's most-used color scheme: they matched his brownish outfits and blond hair to a T. Nevertheless, even though he found himself in a decidedly detective-y territory (_he'd seen the well-used copies of Sherlock Holmes books resting snugly right beside some that had obviously never so much as been opened; was that plastic that they had been covered with on top of the usual book binding?_), he'd already caught himself in the act of relaxing. After a moment of indecision, he finally resigned himself to feeling far more comfortable in such an environment than he should probably be entitled to, considering his nighttime activities and the small matter of their unspoken rivalry at school that appeared to miraculously diminish every time they met there.

As for what the sleuth wanted of him… he'd yet to figure that out. He'd been left to his own devices soon after the blond had shown him to the room and told him to "get comfortable" while the other had ambled off, presumably to both make some tea (British! Typical, really.) and go get the most relevant case-related files. It spoke volumes for the trust that the detective had in him. It also reminded him a bit of a cat leaving a mouse alone to roam the house freely while the cat prepared dinner. The thought made him smile. As a consequence, he didn't immediately notice the detective come to a halt in the door, ready to come in with the tablet that he'd put the tea pot and the cups, as well as two small A4-formatted files, on. When he finally did realize that he was being quietly observed, he beckoned the other in with his hands. Neither commented on that brief moment of silent observation, however. And when he was slowly making his way towards the small sitting table and the equally cushioned light brown chair on the right of the thief, Hakuba was wearing quite the puzzled expression, as if trying to figure out a riddle that required far more attention than what he was used to. Which, in turn, puzzled the amateur magician. Curiosity killed the cat.

"What's the matter?"

The face of the sleuth, however, just cleared in understanding. When he got a genuinely warm smile in lieu of a proper answer, he only got more confused. What was it that had occupied the detective's mind right then?

"Nothing much. I just realized. You like it here?" The last part was asked with an accompanying risen eyebrow. This was quickly growing to become a standard procedure between the two of them. Whenever one of them was asking a question, the other would respond with a raised eyebrow. Ready, set: go.

"… As a matter of fact, I do. Whatever gave you the impression?" The sleuth's way of speaking had to be catching. He'd spoken these words before he'd properly reflected on them; could this be counted as imitation? Then he'd probably just fulfilled the requirements to make the following statement true: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Kaito didn't want to antagonize the blond again, after all.

"You don't have half as many walls up as you do at school." Picked up on that, had he now? Smirking wryly once more, the thief supposed he had to hand this round's win to the sleuth. It wasn't conceding defeat, just one "battle" lost. They weren't fighting, per say, not really anymore, ever since back then when the detective had tried that new method of getting closer to him at a heist. Not that it hadn't worked out in both their favor, he had to admit. Didn't it spoke volumes about how they faced each other now that they didn't descend into verbal lashing out at one another immediately upon meeting? One more thing that he… owed… the detective. He quite enjoyed the companionable silence that surrounded the two of them, engulfing both warmly in its atmosphere like a hug given by someone familiar. While the other carefully poured the tea, adding a lemon to his own and putting the sugar right beside Kaito's cup for easier reach, the invitee mused on his host's situation a little more, until he was brought back to earth by the sleuth's next sentence.

"The case that I wanted to discuss came to pass on the 13th of January. I was told that you'd been to Tropical Land that day." Yes, that sounded far too familiar to him. 13.01., January 13th. He'd had that heist less than a fortnight before that date, hadn't he? And Hakuba had transferred to their class in the middle of the year, during September of the year preceding that one, if he remembered correctly. He'd had to leave for Britain again during December, though, thus explaining why he hadn't known about what Kaito had been up to during January. Yes, that had been… close the end of December that he'd taken the flight, right? Or something the like, at least. The dates had started blurring a little around then, because he'd been juggling his nighttime job, Aoko's demand for "a little more" time spent together, the blond's appearance in their classes – and their consequent arguments, not the least about said long-haired girl –, Akako's sudden involvement in more than his school activities and the latest threat of having snipers at his heists. Gee, his life sure had a way of spicing up happenings for him, didn't it?

Instead of dissipating, though, the comfortable mood stayed in the room while he thought a little more about the date given to him. On the thirteenth of January… what had happened that day? He'd been to Tropical Land…? No joyous event was coming up when he thought about it. Wasn't that an amusement park? Had he gone there with Aoko? Why else would he go to an amusement park, if not à deux because his childhood friend had fancied going there…? The lack of anything even remotely resembling a happy day at an amusement park coming to mind did not help him in the least. Not a happy even then. Something to do with Kid?

Ah. There it was, the red thread connecting the amusement park with Kaitô Kid. At first, an innocent note stuck to his cape appeared in his mind's eye. "_**Cut your way through**_…" hadn't that been exactly what it had said? Unbidden, the whole text sprung right into his inner eye's vision. Yeah, that was probably what the detective wanted to know of him. Frowning, the magician-turned-thief regaled the other with a conflicted look, warring between two different options: to tell him or not to tell him, that was the big question. And if he told him, what would he leave out so as not to incriminate himself? Irregardless of their little truce, the fact was that he was not in any position to wield power over the other, never mind influence or control his thoughts, least of all his actions on the matter. He had to weigh carefully what he was going to say: if he so much as alluded to the fact that Kaitô Kid was involved, he felt more than thought that he'd not have too many minutes in freedom any more. All of a sudden, all the relaxation and ease escaped his muscles and he tensed up, on the verge of but-not-yet jumping right out of his seat and be on the hop like an almost-scared-off bunny. With the next few words coming out of his mouth, the sleuth would be deciding the fate of their tentative liaison, he knew. His classmate probably felt the tension suddenly having come back to him like a flow of energy that his feet had drawn from the floor.

The Hakuba heir opened his mouth once in an unspoken utterance that had all of a sudden been rendered uncertain, stripped off its innocence and suffused with a meaning that had been changed within the matter of the past few minutes. The bare surface of their tea was not disturbed, and yet… the jumpiness that all of a sudden enveloped the two enemies/allies was almost palpable within the air. Kaito was sure that if he'd dared open his mouth, he would have been able to taste and smell it, as well, in the most abstract sense that the word allowed. Intently, he'd fixed Hakuba with his gaze, tense and a tad anxious, even, not that he let anything show on his face or in his gestures. His mimic had reverted to a blank mask, a bare ghost of a smile lingering on his lips. His body language hadn't changed, either. And yet… The junior thief was dead certain that the detective knew of the importance of the words he'd choose to speak next.

"I… on the 13th of January, something happened close to a roller coaster called _Mystery Ride_." Yes, he could clearly recall the murder that had happened on the "_**5 o'clock detective's ride through darkness**_". That headless body had hounded his nightmares for weeks afterwards. He really hadn't needed to see that of all things… a murder was cruel enough on its own, but a murder victim that was headless? It was a small wonder that Kudo had solved the case as quickly as he had.

Then he consciously thought about what he'd been told. It made him stop right in his thinking. Wait, what? Had he said "close to" just now? That made him pause in his tracks. If he remembered correctly then the murder had happened right in the building of the roller coaster, hadn't it? On one of the rides, moreover. Why, then, had the sleuth phrased it like this…? Kaito decided to "play it cool" and stay on the safer side of the conversation until he had more information to work with. His arms had loosened their death grip on the chair's armrests and his whole body had diffused some of the restlessness it had acquired within the last few moments of unease.

"What… exactly are you referring to?" Heh. Give the detective something to chew on, before he showed his own hand. That would at least make him explain and clarify exactly what he'd meant when saying "close to". Carefully scrutinizing the thief, the sleuth nevertheless went on to elucidate his own version of what he thought had happened that day. It was by then glaringly clear to both of them that their versions and impressions obviously differed a great deal. Just how much, though, was yet to be seen.

"… Did you by chance encounter a Kudo Shinichi while you've been there?" Now _that_ question threw him for a loop. An eyebrow went up questioningly, the Kuroba male not even so much as attempting to break the trend concerning their interactions. _What the hell_ did the now-shrunken teenage detective have in common with what they had been talking about? Was the blond sleuth losing it, now? Kaito did admit that he'd seen the eerie doppelganger of himself at the Mystery Coaster, yes. But what the heck…? That had most certainly not been the most important or even the most interesting thing going on back then! He could personally attest to that! This question having come completely out of the left field got him thinking, though. What if…?

"… Yes, I did. What of it?" Reluctantly, the thief prodded the other, as though he had a verbal stick in his hands with which he could do so, all the while inching closer and closer towards the sleuth with his admissions and answers when he felt that it was safe for him to do so. What was the blond pain in the neck up to now…? Where were they heading off to, what direction would their verbal sparring/conversation take now that he'd asked and gotten a reply to this question of his?

"It's just that… Kudo Shinichi, by then renowned high school detective, Detective of the East, as he was called by many,… he disappeared right on that day. Without so much as a trace or a hint to his whereabouts. He mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth, only appearing to a select few events since then the number of which I can count on the fingers of my hands. Now, I was wondering if you knew anything about it that could help me find him."

Oh, please. "Don't tell me…" the thief thought to himself, within the safe confines of his mind. This new conclusion threw him off-kilter, to say the least. Snorting a little more derisively than he'd intended to – but not caring, all the same – he stared at his host with a far more serious look than he'd ever used on him, all previous instances of them conversing (read: arguing) included. His thoughts had all been brought together in an instant to converge on one single string of logical conclusions that he couldn't quite bring himself to like. Now he had them, the missing puzzle pieces; he'd only gotten hold of the very corners, before. In his hands there had been a series of events that not-quite preceded one another, a timeline that stretched out before him but which he hadn't been able to bring together until the moment where the blond had given him the missing data to process most of the information that he'd already acquired on his own. A picture formed in front of his mind's eye. One that – unwilling as he was to do so – connected both men-in-black with the sudden and strange _disappearance_ of one Kudo Shinichi. Did the blond high school detective even know what he was getting himself into? What he was signing up for simply by doing research on his missing colleague? Kaito didn't know much about the other's plight of men-in-black that was haunting him like the men-in-brown were chasing Kaitô Kid, but what he had found out… hadn't been easy to learn nor had it been in anyway the nice kind of knowledge or anything that he'd wanted to know too badly.

He himself knew that they were a) a dangerous lot to hang out with and b) deadly if so much as being looked at for longer than four seconds. That particular run-in with Kudo's shadows had not been fun in any sense of the word. And they quite literally could be described as shadows, couldn't they? Just like his own set of pursuers could be brushed aside with the negligent wave of a hand as a more unintelligent nuisance than he usually had to put up with at school. And that, frankly spoken, was more than enough to know that – if he could – he'd rather keep out of whatever Gordian Knot the smallest of his chasers had gotten tangled up in.

The earnestly foreshadowing silence lasted for longer that any of their classmates had probably ever thought that Kaito would be able to sit still, much less without any word leaving his lips at the same time, and it conveyed the warning that he was playing and replaying in his mind almost comparable to a broken record sprouting off a mantra-like utterance over and over. The meaning was clear. In the end it was the magician who broke the silence.

"Don't… go down there any further than you have already." Haltingly, the words tumbled out of his mouth, carrying far more of this certain… thickness that came from being suffused with information and left hung out to dry, afterwards. The density of emotion (worry, determination) that he exuded mixed with the strong sense of danger that already permeated the air, slowly seeping into his bones and touching his bone marrow in the creepiest fashion.

The blond appeared to be getting the message. Nonetheless, his curiosity had to have been overwhelming him with its intensity, for he appeared to veritably pounce on his warnings only a few moments after Kaito had "let go of the tension", so to speak. Having visibly dissected the words and phrasings – the thief had been able to see the wheels in the detective's brain turning during the silence's existence already – Hakuba didn't lose a second to press him for more details.

"What do you mean? Why shouldn't I…?" Trailing off, the sleuth probably thought him an idiot – a person who had, just now, maybe given him a link to his nighttime identity, he realized belatedly. But it didn't matter. To keep the detective away from them took priority. Kuroba had closed his eyes ever since the other had started speaking. What had to be going through his mind, right now? Once more, silence filled the room, though this time it was more contemplative and, dare he think it?, even companionable. He was slightly amazed at the thought that he'd never believed such a thing could ever exist between the two, and, oh, look where they were now…?

"…

Alright."

Hakuba surprised him by speaking. Would wonders ever cease? Having opened his eyes upon hearing him speak, he looked at the other in undisguised curiosity. He leaned his head left a little, making him appear almost bird-like, silently telling the sleuth to go on explaining with this gesture.

"That… I – you're…" The detective sighed, as though frustrated not to find the right words in that moment. Kaito was just wondering if the world would end soon and why nobody had told him the exact date and time of its collapse, yet. The oh-so-sophisticated British kid couldn't find the right words to express himself?

"Alright. I won't pursue this for much longer. I would be interested to know why you're so against it; however I won't press you, now." The blond teenager bowed his head in his direction, eyes closed. The immediate submission to his… demand, for lack of a better word, astonished him a little. Oh, he was all too aware of the staggeringly gigantic loopholes that the detective had inserted into his words. As, he supposed, was the detective. Nevertheless, he was quite generous, wasn't he? He wasn't even putting up much of a fight against him… which made him suspicious as hell, too, but that would be a trap that the sleuth would be running into all by himself. The part-time thief resolved to follow his steps more closely so that nothing untoward would be happening in the near future while he wasn't there to prevent it from doing so.

Although; the heavy, pensive and dangerous air had apparently been exchanged for one that was much lighter to bear, a companionable and genial one that he found very accommodating. An easy smile came to his lips, one that his host shared upon catching it. Shoulders sagging, he switched the topic, asking the thief whether he was planning to go to the ball that was to be held the evening of the 31st of October. It was a policeman's ball, which might have been the reason behind his question. The blond had to be curious if Kaito – being the phantom thief's civilian identity as the case was – would be willing go this far into the lion's den or not. A light laugh passed his lips before he knew it. Him, afraid of policemen? As though he hadn't grown up with one living right in the next house over! Hakuba's face featured a similar expression to his: not quite a smirk, yet both knew exactly what had been going through his head directly upon hearing the – rather absurd, he thought – question. After Aoko had invited him to that event – as she did to almost all events hosted by the Metropolitan police that her father had to be present and invited her to, as well, – he accompanied her. It was like this every time such an event had been arranged and he was sure this particular "tradition" would not change anytime soon, regardless of how the long-haired girl was behaving at the moment. She had her phases, too, sometimes. One was better off leaving her to them and asking her about them after the fact than intruding upon them and ending up being chased all over their district. Kaito had firsthand experiences on that. It had been less fun than their normal classroom chases were, to say the least.

Aoko angry because someone had picked the wrong time to disrupt her contemplation? That was a state that he wouldn't want to meet her in on the street. And they had a lot of possible meeting points, what with them being neighbors to one another. In those cases, this turned out not to be the very best position that he could be in. No, if she had to think something out in her head, he'd leave her alone. Like this, it was better for everyone all around. Their classmates could experience a normal school day without undue interruptions and explosions for once – as much as it pained them, apparently –, their teachers would finally be able to do their job, properly, that was, and their parents wouldn't get any more letters that would tell them that their children obviously were quite gifted kids, but if they could tame their young, little monsters' offspring's capriciousness a little more, that would be awesome (_paraphrased, of course_).

And she'd already told him to meet her after school, right? Kaito would go to her house right after he'd exited Hakuba's … mansion… and talk to her and after that he'd go home and go over the plans for the upcoming Kid heist once more. This, among other things, like his increasing suspicion that the blond would do something stupid sometime soon (_hopefully after the heist!_), was the incentive for him to finally beat it and head out once more, after telling Hakuba that he'd still have to do some homework (_homework, hah!_) and excusing himself for the intrusion, as was custom. Hakuba even accompanied him out, well-mannered host that he was. The grimace only just did _not_ appear on his face at that. When they said goodbye at the door, however, the blond had one more question that caught him completely unawares. Perplexed, he stared at his host. And stared. Had he just honestly asked if…? His eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline. Just what image of the other teenage detective did the blond have in his mind?

"Never mind." Hakuba had said then. The blond had bowed, once, a clear show of respect towards an equal, and gone back into the house, paying no mind whatsoever to how he'd just closed the door right in his guest's face or what kind of turmoil he'd managed to get Kaito's mind into now.

XXX

The late autumn wind played with his hair, once again, as he slowly ambled towards his childhood friend's house. The leaves had already halfway left the safe trees' branches in the most poetic of ways: by dancing down towards the floor in the rhythm of the wind. His timing that day certainly left nothing to be desired: it was close to half past five in the afternoon which gave him enough of a leeway to take his time on his way there and still be punctual. Kaito was nothing if not punctual, after all. The sun hung low in the sky already, threatening to tip downwards over the horizon at any given moment that he didn't pay attention. It was a beautiful day, really. A pity school usually didn't let out until five in the afternoon – come next month they'd be going home in the darkness once more, he mused to himself a little regretfully. It was a good thing that he liked the evenings just as well as he did any other time of the day.

Aoko – she'd once told him she liked dawn and dusk best. To him, those were the two times of the day that were the most ambiguous as well as the ones that harbored the most change of all of the choices possible. Funny, how the world worked sometimes. He'd always thought she'd like the daytime best of all, up until he'd asked her (_rather indifferently_) about it when the topic had come up during one of her chats with Keiko at school. To be frank, Kaito thought it quite ironic. His alter ego, Kaitô Kid, was walking the skies clad in white, as everybody – in particular his most admirable followers aka chasers, the policemen – very well knew, though he himself was leaning far more towards the grayish area where crimes and their resolutions were concerned. And here, he was presented with an honest policeman's daughter who was so obviously tending towards the belief that the world was cut into two definite pieces (_black and white, that was_) and who liked the grayish periods best of all the times in a day that she could choose from. From time to time, Kaito thought that the moon was laughing at him from up there, where it faithfully followed the sun over the sky's landscape.

Never mind, though. He'd reach her house in about ten more minutes. Kaito would then ask her and figure out what was wrong with her and why she'd been acting in this strange a way that day. They'd be alright after about an hour of shouting, running and chasing and then he'd finally be able to go home to review his plans for the upcoming Kid heist the next day. Nothing easier to do than that, right?

Now, if only what the detective had asked him before he so nicely shut the door in his face would not still be lingering on his mind, that would be great. It would be even better if the words he'd directed at Kaito hadn't sounded so absurd and outright unbelievable to the magician thief. That… was an idea which was absolutely unconceivable, even in his imagination. It had come out of the left field and completely overwhelmed him with its absurdity and irrationality. Not that he was a candidate to reject or defy either; on a normal Kid heist he made it his job to prove those could be build into a career (_not a legal one, but that didn't exactly count here._); it was just that at that very moment, the sleuth had managed to do something he hadn'd thought Hakuba could do again: he'd made him speechless. Gee, did that sleuth have to do that to him every other time they met?

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**AN:** Reviews, please?


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